Uptown Notes

Well this is news to me! On the eve of the Michigan Civil Right Institute’s launch of their campaign for signatures on the anti-Affirmative Action ballot intiative the Detroit News reports that BAMN is now officially tied with Citizens for a United Michigan. I was under the impression that C4AUM was not dealing with BAMN, but clearly, I’ve been out of the loop!!!!

Before the MLK festivities go into full swing, I thought I would put a fake-o MLK site on BLAST! WWW.MARTINLUTHERKING.ORG is a page that attempts to tarnish King’s legacy with half-truths and very poor argumentation (see for yourself). It appears the page is affliated with www.duke.org- David Duke’s webpage. You’ll see this if you try to download an adobe version of the flyers they want people to download.

Here’s some more stories on an oldie but goodie: Affirmative Action.

The Michigan Daily provides a pretty benign commentary on the Connerly Ballot Initiative, if you read yesterday’s Ann Arbor News, no need to read this one. And suprise, suprise, the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) are going to support the ballot initiative.

Jay Greene, in a piece for the Washington Post, argues that improving the pipeline to higher education is crucial, more crucial than Affirmative Action. Point taken, but it’s not a trade off, in the process of improving K-12 education (where we don’t know a definite solution to creating equality) we must also still utilize Affirmative Action for those already in the system!

Lastly, I’m gonna need conservakids (Harris 2002) to get a new bag of tricks. They are really pressing on this “affirmative action bake sale thing.” They just did one at Utah State University and this AP story covers some of the others that have happened nationally. In my old age, 25 ;) , I’m getting tired of the same tactics.

Lastly, because I like to laugh, and sometimes cry at the ridiculus, here is story from the Atlanta Journal Constitution on names, not just any names, special names based on brands, Stop the madness!!! A la Casper in Kids, “What happened?”

I’m back in effect mode… yeah.

So the Ann Arbor News ran a piece today on Ward’s hustle to raise money for his ballot initiative to ban Affirmative Action in the state of Michigan. The article is fairly basic and doesn’t lend much insight into the complicated discussion of how well citizens can or will be informed/mobilized on this issue. Last week, the A-deuce News ran a story on the EPIC-MRA survey that found 63% of residents are not in support of racial preferences. Note: I said racial preferences, not Affirmative Action. The wording of the question, as reported by the A-deuce News, asked if residents would be in favor of a ballot initiative to “prohibit government agencies or universities from discriminating against or granting any preferential treatment to someone on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.”

The language is critically important, dependent on the term used (affirmative action, racial preferences, discrimination, reverse discrimination, etc.) the findings of surveys and polls vary. Below you’ll find an editorial by Doreen O’Donovan, a Ford School student, about the News’ reporting of the poll. I don’t think the Ann Arbor News ever ran her editorial. Boo them!

Dear Editor,

When the Board of State Canvassers approved the ballot proposal on December 12,

protesters primary concern was the wording. As journalist it is our

responsibility to report on the entire story, not just the words fed to you by

the out of state group that proposes to change our state constitution. Point

out the purposely-convoluted wording and how it might affect those who answered

the poll. Ask why Texas was able to control the wording of the ballot and the

Michigan Board of State Canvassers was not. That is the real story.

Don’t forget to look at the ballot initiative language, which is located in the political corner!

Dress warm ya’ll, it’s gonna be a cold winter (in more than one way)!

Welcome back. Well you maybe saying to that to me since I haven’t posted in a minute. I’ve been out of town, even on a Carribean vacation. Can you blame a brotha? But since I am still not back in Michigan this will be a short post that is all about me. Like to hear it? Here it go!

On December 28th, the New Haven Register, my local Connecticut paper covered a local club shooting in Milford, a suburb of New Haven. Their story, “1 man dies in Club shooting” was shockingly covert in its racial tones and messages. So on the way to the airport, to go on my fabulous vacation, I wrote a letter to the editor. The editorial is in today’s paper. What do you think?

More to come later, I promise, for real. I know I’ve been slacking.

Since my last commentary on Hip-Hop culture and Black youth has sparked a little talk, I figured I would update on some more interesting issues and representations within Hip-Hop culture. The first, is the Cam’ron, Dame Dash, and Bill O’Reilly (yeah, the O’Reilly Factor) meeting. Many folks were impressed by the discussion on “the no spin zone,” especially since O’Reilly is known to invite guests on the show to destroy them. Apparently, this was not the case on this episode. Black Electorate’s hip-hop friday’s commentary and transcript give the tale of the tape.

For “all the bad that rap music and Hip-Hop culture produce” there are really good contributions too. M-I- crooked letter’s own, David Banner, will donate 50,000 dollars to 5 people hopeful of continuing their post-secondary education. In case you didn’t realize, also, David Banner is an alumni of Southern University, where he was the Student Government Association president while there. He has a semester remaining in completing his masters in education at the University of Maryland where his gpa was a 3.9987. Just so you all recognize there’s more to him than talking about Mississippi.

More to come later, when I feel moved to do so.

Here is a great column on mainstream journalism and hip-hop culture (read: Black youth) by Amy Alexander. It once again relays the importance of “watchdogs” and the need for diversity in journalism, which includes editorials. Freedom of speech was endowed by this country’s “founding fathers” but equality was denied by these same men. Only differences in treatment are much more subtle than they have been in the past.

I’m working on finishing up the semester, so my posts will be real spotty from this time till January. Despite this, like Bartles and James, back in the 80s, “We thank you for your support.”

So apparently the Klan delivered a letter to the VP of University of Louisville demanding time to speak, complete with spelling errors. Before anyone emails me, I can’t spell, but I make sure letters to school officials are correct!

Brian Battaglia has apologized publicly for the pictures on his website, while still acknowledging his right to freedom of expression.

Now that race relations are no longer a problem, we should all be better off ;) More interesting stuff later.

Here’s a little update from two other campuses regarding race relations stuff.

Remember last year when Bank One hired some idiots to give away free tee-shirts with credit card applications? You know the ones that read, “10 reasons why a beer is better than a black man.” Well this year, they put in big money to bring Sistah Souljah to speak for a diversity series, but now the heat is on the University of Louisville’s administration to sponsor the Klan to speak. That’s right, the Klan feels they need to present a balanced perspective … shouldn’t the Klan be petitioning Bank One, or maybe the firm that made the tee-shirts? I’m sure they’d be an ally.

In other Klan news, the chair of Penn State’s College Republicans came under heat for posting pictures of a halloween party which featured party goers in Black face, mock Klan garb, and other offensive costumes. Brian Battaglia’s personal page featured a number of pictures with one caption reading, “He took a break from cross burning to drink a cold one.” Tiffanie Lewis, no relation to me, of the Black Caucus called for his resignation. Doesn’t he know that the Republicans were the party of Lincoln …?

I’ve been under the weather, so there haven’t been any updates in the past few days, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to mention!

First, Nathaniel Jones’ death was ruled a homicide by the Hamilton County coroner. Now the caveat is that the coroner says that Jones had a number of health problems that contributed to his death. Though he would not have died at that moment, the coroner urged people not to take this as a case of “hostile or malign behavior.” Okay, I am way too fed up to even comment!

The Daily recently had another Diversity explosion! This week the Daily looked at the new bill HR 333, which seeks to have APIA communities listed as one of the minority groups that would recieve federal grants in higher education. To complement their reporting of HR 333, the Daily also ran Lauren Strayer’s piece entitled, “Racism among friends.” This piece was really pointless, but it keeps ringing in my head, well at least one question does. Why can’t you tell your friend not to use the term oriental now?

Also, this week, NASA co-sponsored a program on secret socities, apparently the session got heated. Now isn’t the term “bashed” a bit prejorative?

The Michigan Ballot Initiative is now upon us! Below you will find an email from Carl Cohen of the Residential College. Beneath his letter in bold is the proposed ballot intiative that will attempt to prohibit affrimative action, and yes that is the correct term, in the state of Michigan! Organized opposition has already begun. The struggle continues.

Colleagues and friends:



You will have noted that the battle over race preferences in

Michigan has begun. It is not a battle over affirmative action;

affirmative action, vigorous steps designed to extirpate all

discrimination by race and ethnicity, are untouched by the proposition

to be voted on. Ours is a country in which racism has penetrated very

deeply; one would be foolish indeed to suppose that there is no need to

continue the battle to uproot it. But that battle, in a decent society,

will certainly not involve the very discrimination that is to be

eliminated. The proposition on which the people of Michigan will vote in

2004 aims only to forbid all discrimination by the state and it

agencies, including the University of Michigan, and to forbid all

preference by race, color, ethnicity, or national origin.

To help our general understanding of what is at issue in this

matter, I include here an exact copy of the entire text of the

proposition that is to be on the ballot in the fall of 2004. The first

two sentences below comprise the whole of its substantive force. They

appear repetitive, but that is because the University of Michigan, like

some other public universities in Michigan, are constitutionally

autonomous. The complete text — which I support with all my heart —

follows:

—————-



A proposal to amend the Constitution of the State of Michigan to

prohibit the University of Michigan and other state universities, the

State, and all other state entities from discriminating or granting

preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national

origin.

This section does not invalidate any court order or consent decree that

is in force as of the effective date of this section.

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